11 robot fails, flubs, and pratfalls from the past year

The Atlas shelf-stack fail that broke the internet

Boston Dynamics makes some mighty impressive robots. One of them is Atlas, a 6'3" humanoid that made its public debut in 2013 and competed in the DARPA Robotics Challenge.

But during a test exercise last year, video of which Boston Dynamics gamely shared with the world, the robot failed in spectacular fashion. Unable to place a box on a shelf, it ended up pulling the whole shelf down, then toppling over itself.

April Fools

CLOi goes silent on stage

It's the nightmare scenario for any spokesperson: Your much-hyped product fails in front of a live audience at the industry's biggest showcase.

That's what happened when David VanderWaal, LG's VP of marketing, tried to demo CLOi, LG's new home assistant robot at CES. The robot started off okay, responding to a scheduling command and setting a washing machine. Then disaster struck in the form of silence.

Robot fired from store for utter incompetence

The robot, a customized version of SoftBank's Pepper humanoid, was brought in to help a family-run Scottish grocery chain. At least that was the idea.

In practice, Scottish customers didn't want anything to do with the officious automaton. In part, it was a failure of the technology. Background noise in the store frequently prevented Fabio from understanding customer questions the first time asked.

Self-driving car strikes pedestrian

This is a decidedly more somber entry. In March, a self-driving car being tested by Uber struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona.

Uber is pausing tests across the U.S. while an investigation into the cause of the death is underway.

As companies race to be the first to market with self-driving vehicles on public roads and highways, it's a sobering reminder that the technology is still very much in development. Whether the incident slows down the pace of testing nationwide remains to be seen.

Robot suitcase won't stop falling over

The Puppy 1 by Chinese firm 90Fun is what would happen if a Segway and a Samsonite had a baby.

The self-balancing, two-wheeled suitcase follows anyone holding a special remote control. It can also be controlled manually via a joystick on the remote.

Lacking obstacle-avoidance, however, it's a real hazard in a crowd or in all but the widest of linoleum-adorned terminals. And the prototype, at least, has another quirk: It keeps falling over unexpectedly.

When the robot overlords take over, these distant ancestors might be cause for embarrassment

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The Atlas shelf-stack fail that broke the internet

Boston Dynamics makes some mighty impressive robots. One of them is Atlas, a 6'3" humanoid that made its public debut in 2013 and competed in the DARPA Robotics Challenge.

But during a test exercise last year, video of which Boston Dynamics gamely shared with the world, the robot failed in spectacular fashion. Unable to place a box on a shelf, it ended up pulling the whole shelf down, then toppling over itself.